


Map of your body

by nava



Series: falling and fumbling [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Humor, Romance, Size Difference, Smut, silly sex because not everything is always perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:41:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nava/pseuds/nava
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herah and Solas try to figure out the logistics of their relationship, insofar as the physical realm goes. </p><p>Established relationship, skyhold balcony scene</p>
            </blockquote>





	Map of your body

Herah had always been aware of her height, her general size in the world of humans and elves - all of them looking up at her the way someone might look at a tall tree they fear may fall on their house. Qunari often end up having qunari partners, apparently, just to avoid the physical difficulties being of such disparate sizes bring and all the other social awkwardness that being a qunari always inherently summons in people. 

 

The qunari men have found less issue with being wanted by other races, but the women face varying difficulties. It is intimidating to other people that they have to crane their neck to look up, or it’s the horns, or something else. 

 

Herah’s previous partners, brief and often from another mercenary band, have all been qunari. She had appreciated the way elves and dwarves and humans look - but she was a towering giant with horns, looking draconic and decidedly dangerous with her staff in hand, and that was all they could see. They saw a qunari, not a woman, as if the two could not possibly coexist. It ached when she’d been younger, and hadn’t quite understood why she fell short, or why she was constantly rejected - the idea had formed that she was perhaps very ugly - until she grew older and understood. 

 

The lack of knowledge or experience with other races never bothered her - she never learned the erogenous zones or social norms of elves or humans because there was little sense in learning something she would never practice. 

 

She regretted that now. She and Solas had started their, affair? Courtship? Ever slow seduction? She felt woefully unarmed and ignorant. But it wouldn’t matter now since he had just ended it.

 

Solas had tried breaking their tentative - whatever - off and she’d asked him if he meant it, if he wanted no part in whatever was growing, slowly, unfurling like a sprout in stormy weather. If he no longer felt such a way about her, she wouldn’t force the issue, wouldn’t force her presence on him, but if this was what he believed was best for the Inquisition... Public opinion was low enough for her being an oxman and a mage, she hardly doubted the Herald of Andraste taking a lover would matter much - unless - 

 

Well. 

 

Unless her being a qunari bothered him. If that’s what it was, then that was something neither could abide. She was what she was and wouldn’t change that for the comfort of someone else, and if that was the root of Solas’ problem, then he couldn’t help it either. 

 

“Is my being a qunari the problem Solas?” The words came out far more accusing than she meant. This was an old argument, an old wound that had scarred over with time but she could feel the phantom pain squirming beneath the surface. Her face felt hot unexpectedly. Shame, singular and childish, washed over her. 

 

Solas turned back to her, eyes wide and startled. “No - no that is not why.” He sighed and approached cautiously, one foot sliding in front of the other. “I cannot divulge why, but that is not the reason - will never, never be the reason, I swear to you vhen’an.”

 

He paused and Herah took advantage of his temporary stillness. 

 

She swallowed hard and spoke and was glad that her voice didn’t tremble although it sounded thick. 

 

“You never told me what that means.” That was not what she wanted to say. That was definitely not what she wanted to say. 

 

He looked away, glanced from one corner of the room, to the other and landed at her feet before his eyes dragged up, so blue and gray and dark with something like sadness and regret and tenderness that it made her distressed. “This will end badly. For you. For me. For us both - it is pain I would shield you from, if possible. I am selfish but truthful enough to admit that I will treasure what has been.” He sounded raw and Herah, out of reflex, wanted to back down, she didn’t want to press him, press  _ this _ , but she had a stake in it too and he couldn’t take that from her. 

 

“You can’t just make decisions for me, Solas.” Herah flung a hand in his direction. He met her gaze squarely, some frustration burning in his eyes now. She liked that about him, damn it. Liked that even though he had to look up at her he didn’t feel small beside her, liked that he met her gaze as surely as he did Varric’s or Cassandra’s or Sera’s. She wasn’t her people and he knew that, saw that. She was a woman and he recognized it. 

 

“This isn’t about making decisions for you, this is about protecting you.” He paused, his calm returning and melancholy settling in his shoulders. “What little I can.” 

 

Herah shook her head and hesitated, hand outstretching to his arm before dropping to her front and she wrung her hands together. “You can’t protect someone from everything, and not from the unknown. It doesn’t work like that, Solas. And - and if this hurts, in the end, if it ends, however way, then it hurts. That’s part of being alive. Good with the bad. Sweet and sorrow, that’s how it works. If you don’t want to continue, then, that’s personal and on you. But don’t use me as an excuse. You don’t get to do that. I am my own person and I’d like very much to, to continue on whatever we’re doing, whatever this is building up to be. So if you want to end it now, then you can end it. But you can’t use me as an excuse.” 

 

She met his gaze and kept her breathing even. Her eyes felt hot, wet, but she wouldn’t cry in front of him. She wouldn’t beg him for it. He deserved better than someone trying to trap him with tears and she had her pride too. 

 

Solas inhaled shakily and she found no satisfaction that this was affecting him as much. She braced herself for it, he’d let her down gently because he was far gentler than he let on, and she’d hold herself together until he left and she could have a good cry on the balcony where the wind would dry her face for her. 

 

He stepped forward and lay a hand on the side of her neck, and drew her down. She didn’t resist, she felt that strange strength in his muscles when they were so close or in the heat of a hard battle. He pressed his forehead to hers, crown touching the curve of her horns and she sighed gustily. A bittersweet goodbye. How like him. How romantic.

 

“I cannot.” He murmured. “You’ve undone me and you have no idea what that means for either of us but it does not, cannot, change anything.” 

 

Herah just listened to him, caught on hearing a loop of ‘I cannot’. “You cannot what?” She asked. She felt as if a whole conversation had happened and she’d missed it. 

 

The breath was stolen from her from the suddenness of it - he’d backed her to the short, wide cabinet that held her ceremonial Inquisition vestments and assorted sigils and runes. She had no choice but to sit on it from the way he pushed her, strength surprising and surpassing her in a way that she would have wondered about if he hadn’t pulled her down and kissed her like he was drowning and needed air. 

 

She opened her mouth when he leaned against her heavily, teeth sharp against the bottom curve of her lip and she sighed at the touch of his tongue. He didn’t kiss like he had in the Fade, where it had been sudden and he’d surprised himself with a hunger she’d accidentally taunted, or even the balcony where it was languid and slow and regretful, or the few times on the battlefield when she’d thanked him or teased him and had been pleasantly surprised when he’d teased back, more mischievous than she would have thought. 

 

This was some part of him slipping the leash, a hidden facet he’d avoided showing her, like on the Exalted Plains when he’d nearly killed the group of mages. It was needy and hungry and desperate and a living thing that wanted out, emanating from him in a way that made her ache -  _ she  _ did that. 

 

Her thighs, long and thick, came around his hips - the vestments cabinet was low enough that it put her height somewhat equivalent to his - and he gasped, one hand on her hip, tugging her ever closer. He pulled back, halting against her. 

 

“I apologize, it has been...a while for me.” He sounded a little winded.

 

“Well. You’re doing fantastic.” She sounded much worse. 

 

He laughed, nudged her with his nose and she tilted her head down to rest the curl of her shortened horns against him, bumping his forehead. “Kadan.” She rasped. It was too late to take anything back if he meant for this to be goodbye. 

 

His other hand slid beneath her left knee, raising it to his waist so he could step closer - she felt the heat from him and it was the sweetest kind of agony she’d ever felt. “Vhen’an.” He returned. Tit for tat. 

 

She didn’t want this to be goodbye - they couldn’t go further if that’s what this was, she couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to - 

 

“What do you mean you can’t?” Her voice broke and she hated it. 

 

He shook his head slowly. “I cannot excuse myself. It would be kinder. But. I am selfish. Too selfish. You will not thank me for it.” He met her eyes. 

 

“It’s alright.” She had no idea what was alright. “I’m not jumping in with my eyes closed, are you?” 

 

He laughed but it was short and mirthless. “I believe we both are.” He was saying too many things without saying anything. 

 

“At least we can’t see the bottom.” She replied. 

 

Solas stared back, eyes large and piercing, before he moved in again. The desperation was there at the forefront but there was infinite affection. Herah kissed back, felt warmth start from her toes and travel up, up, to the places of her body that felt him. 

 

He ground against her suddenly, a slow drag that had her jerk and gasp, felt him between her legs and even despite the clothing still between them, she felt it so intimately that it made her shudder. He pulled away and she stretched her neck, chasing him with her mouth but he latched onto her throat, humming and sucking. Her head fell back and she heard the vestments cabinet wood protest when her nails clawed at the top. The rhythm he’d begun was building from a slow rocking that was somehow urgent to a hurried movement that set the cabinet moving back in increments.

 

A tightening started, heat spreading out and taking over. She rolled her hips up to him, finding the cadence of the movement and matching it. She pressed her cheek to his and kissed his cheekbone, breathed a line down his jawline and nipped at him with sharp teeth. She made an involuntarily loud moan that ended in a whine when he shifted just so. 

 

His eyes were dilated, dark and focused. Color was rising on him, pale dusting of pink highlighting the freckles and the hints of ginger he carried in his brows - she had enough presence of mind to acknowledge that she was likely looking far more wrecked. 

 

Her breath shortened, the tightness spiraling into a coil that was rigged, her legs tightened around him and she clawed forcefully at the cabinet as if she was going to be dragged away. Solas kissed her again, mouth working and he whispered something between breaths, murmuring elvish against her - and the coil broke, washed asunder and she felt as though she was sinking in open water, so warm and effervescent. 

 

One of her hands searched, searching for something and another hand caught hers. He folded their fingers together, didn’t break the kiss and continued rocking, but it slowed, gentling. 

 

He stopped and rested his head against the top swell of her breasts, breathing heavily. 

 

She wheezed before she spoke. She felt she might never get enough breath back to speak. “Did you…?” 

 

“No. Not yet.” 

 

Herah felt mild satisfaction at that. That sounded like a promise. 

 

He backed up, untangled their fingers and sent her a look that she felt may have sent her initiating something dirty immediately if she didn’t feel like she may fall over. “The bed?” he asked with a small smile that she had the sneaking suspicion that meant he knew what she was thinking. 

 

She looked over at it, a large wide Fereldan thing with a heavy practical frame and Orlesian off white draperies that gaped open. She adored it. She dearly hoped they didn’t break it somehow. “Give me a moment. I don’t know if I can stand.” She answered.

 

He looked rather smug about that. He took his tunic and undershirt off but left his leggings on, and unraveled the wraps around his feet. 

 

She watched, felt her mouth dry. He was paler than she was, compared to her darker tawny complexion but he was less slim than she’d thought. She had felt the broadness of his shoulders in other moments, so unlike other elves, and the sharpness of his features that seemed nearly aristocratic and the sinewy muscle that shifted beneath his skin. It seemed nearly bred into him. But to see it displayed without a barrier, it was much more obvious. She wondered if he’d had human in his lineage at some point. 

 

But those thoughts meant less than nothing when he looked at her expectantly. 

 

She slid from the cabinet slowly. She hadn’t been joking about needing a moment. Her knees and hips felt loosened, weak. She unclasped her tunic, and slid her trousers from her and made to work on her smallclothes but he laid his hand on her wrist and shook his head once, firmly, but there was a quality of impishness to him that drowned out the previous air of sadness. 

 

She flopped decidedly gracelessly onto the bed and squirmed until she placed her head on a pillow. Solas crawled in after her and she raised her brows. He looked predatory, far more than she’d remembered seeing. He climbed over her, trapping her thighs between his knees and rising to his to stare down at her. She lifted to her elbows when he tugged at her breast band silently.

 

It struck her briefly when he began slowly unwinding her breast wraps, that Solas was very, very good at this. Conversely, he seemed - starved? Touch starved. When he said “it had been a while” she wondered how long that was. She tugged at the lobe of his right ear gently. He dragged his eyes from his task briefly and his mouth twitched as if in amusement. She smiled back. 

 

She felt the pressure encircling her chest give and the last of the binding fell away and he gave a soft noise of approval. “Bit different from elven women?” she cleared her throat to say it although the words still came out husky, her Free Marcher accent more pronounced. Solas didn’t respond immediately, choosing to run a hand along the side of her breast, thumb outstretched to rub over the darkening area of her areola and over the pebbled surface of her nipple. His fingertips felt a shade colder. 

 

“Somewhat, yes.” He looked at her, eyes strangely soft. His eyes moved across her face and he seemed to drink in the details of her being. She wondered what he saw, how he would describe her in a report. Would he start with her skin color? The short horns that curled over and around her ears, the white hair she kept in a strict knot? Would he mention her wide eyes, almond and pinched at the corners, or the color of purple they were? Or would he focus on her height, on the obvious outline of her body? 

 

“But it is you. And that is far, far more than I deserve.” He finished quietly, his other hand running the pad of his thumb across her lip. The other hand on her breast had stilled.

 

She leaned into his hands and touched the tip of her nose to his. “Don’t say that. You don’t give yourself enough credit. Now, please continue what you were doing before I spontaneously combust.” 

 

He huffed in amusement, but the cloud that had gathered was gone again. 

 

The hand on her breast began kneading lightly, thumb circling her nipple slowly. She sighed and dropped her head back, lowered herself flat again and watched Solas strip himself. 

 

His cock was - well larger than she would have thought, even despite having it pressed against her through his clothing earlier. It was curved and bobbed and overall, she thought, it was rather pretty. And what they said about elves seemed true - for him at least. His pubic hair was spare and he had no trail of hair from his navel. 

 

Her smallclothes slid down her legs and he tossed them over the bed without looking, intent on seeing her. 

 

He stared down at the thatch of hair between her legs. She coughed awkwardly. “I usually trim. But um. Lots of, er, traveling and venatori and dragon hunting.” She was babbling. And why, why didn’t she take the time to trim at the river while she was wandering around looking for a lost druffalo and venatori assassins. Of course he would see her while she was a hairy beast from out in the wilderness.

 

He kept staring and without looking at her, “Even here your hair is white.” His eyes met hers and she felt reassured when they smoldered. “You are more beautiful than you know.” He leaned forward and pressed a hand to the curls. A finger, long and elegant but more calloused than it looked, slid along her lips, slick and wanting and clenching under him. 

 

He moved as if he had all the time in the world and seemed to be enjoying just watching her - as much as she appreciated his generosity, something fairly unknown to her, she wanted him in the moment with her. She tugged at his shoulders and he moved, one hand resting at the swell of her hip, fingers tight and his other hand left her bereft, sliding away to pull her thighs further apart. 

 

And - it was a moment that speared through her, the world fell away and the breeze beyond smelled of flowers and spring and all she could feel was him in her, around her, over her. He slid in and pulled himself up, a crinkle forming in his brow and it took her a moment to realize that his face seemed far away. The follow up realization took the moment in a different direction. 

 

In this position, with her legs spread and surrounding him, he only came up to breast level. Not impossible, but it felt - it didn’t feel close enough at this time. 

 

She sat up on her elbows again and rocked experimentally. They realized this wouldn’t work either, her chest would smother him with every thrust and in order to avoid running face first into her, he’d have to lean back uncomfortably.

 

What had been beautiful and sweet was now the inelegant game of ‘how can we do this and not injure ourselves?’

 

Solas slid under her, tugged her hip to maneuver her to sit on his lap. Her on top was fine for several minutes. Hips rolling like the ocean in the summer, placid with a hint of something more beneath the surface, one of Solas’ hands running up her waist, to her thigh and the other supported her hip while he drove up - 

 

He hit a spot in her that made her gasp and rise up, toss her head back -

 

The bed’s draperies got caught up in her horns and she accidentally tore an entire section off in her startled flail to remove the gauzy material from her person. A wooden peg hit her in the eye when the canopy was torn and completely killed her desire to be on top, ever. 

 

To his credit Solas only chuckled once while he untangled her horns. 

 

Finally, after having to rebuild what had been lost in her scuffle with the bed (to be fair, neither seemed to mind that burden), she just rolled to her hands and knees in front of him and let her forearms brace her. “Are you certain you don’t mind this?” He asked.

 

She looked back at him. “If I minded I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have eagerly went to my knees in front of you.” 

 

A hand glided over the high rise of her posterior. “I do not think so, but I was not sure if you would find it demeaning.” 

 

She squinted. “You just watched me get a bed canopy caught in my horns during sex. This is far less awkward.” 

 

“Fair enough.” 

 

He settled behind her and only pushed down at the small of her back, “You are too high,” before he slid in. Her breath rushed out in a sigh and she felt him lay on her back, traced the line of her spine with his mouth and tongue, chest pressed to her. 

 

She’d had partners in this position who would just grab and rush as if it were a race they meant to beat her at - finish and rush off and left her with the mess and still unfinished. She didn’t believe Solas would do the same, but he was a male, and he thought with his cock just like any other so she just counted herself lucky he enjoyed foreplay and got her off already. 

 

He shifted to one side then the other between long, prolonged thrusts and he found - found her, found a place that went deeper and made her feel as if it had always been ignored and only now was awoken. She hissed, jerked forward but was stopped by a firm hand on her hip, stronger than it looked. He found it and gave no mercy - not that she thought she deserved any of course. 

 

It was loud. Skin on skin, slick with sweat and fluids, heavy breaths filling the air, trade tongue accompanying a smatter of qunlat and long strings of elvish that sounded musical and absolutely filthy. She had never been quiet, perse, but she wasn’t used to be so loud. Her voice bounced off the walls, filtered only slightly by the remains of the bed canopy. It echoed off stone and came back to her and she was startled by the way she sounded. 

 

Solas made low groans and harsh pants between the soft words he spoke, the oaths he muttered when she pushed back. Her head tipped back, spine arching beneath him and Solas grabbed one horn - he’d had to dodge the horns when she moved suddenly earlier so she didn’t mind his guidance. He used his holds on her as leverage to go faster, harder. 

 

She arched further when she came, felt slick and sticky and Solas murmured something in her ear - “Ear lave ma” and his forehead rested on her back. He spent himself inside with a long hiss, still moving and drawing out their moment so it lasted. 

 

She sagged, head down between her arms and mildly watched her breasts sway with the movement of him behind her. He stopped finally and stayed a moment, softening in her and breathing against her, chest to back, abdomen to rear. She bore his weight gladly. 

 

He withdrew sedately and she took the opportunity to drop her hips, splay her legs and push her face into a pillow. 

 

He reclined beside her on the spare pillows she kept to one side of her bed. She looked over at him and smiled a little drunkenly. 

 

“You are satisfied?” He asked although his facial expression told her he already knew the answer. 

 

She hummed. “I can’t feel my lower body. I’m also quite sure we’ve ruined the sheets.” 

 

He considered. “We may have to launder these ourselves.” The ever present crinkle between his brows was gone.

 

She laughed abruptly. “You look...more relaxed? I think.” 

 

“Sex does wonders.” He agreed without saying so. “Especially when you are fortunate enough to have it with someone whose company you enjoy greatly regardless.” 

 

No love confessions, today. She was satisfied with that. He cared for her, was really good at sex, and seemed to not care that she was a qunari. She was a woman. She was herself first to him. And that was enough. 

 

“I feel bad.” She gestured at the canopy. “Josie spent a lot of time and money picking out one she thought I’d like.” 

 

Solas looked at the ragged tear. “Do you need to tell her?” 

 

“Leliana will.” 

 

“Ah.” They both knew Leliana’s propensity for spies and spying. She or one of her people would see the evidence and snitch to Josephine. “Unfortunate.” 

 

“I suppose I could always blame you.” She concentrated on a silly gold tassel on an equally self-important pillow. 

 

She felt more than saw him gaze at her. “People will talk. They will assume.” 

 

“Oh you know. Qunari mage supporting mage rights - I don’t have nearly enough scandals to keep me satisfied.” Why did she say that. Why did she bring that up, any of it? Was she asking for Solas to leap over the balcony to escape from her? 

 

A warm weight settled around her waist, an arm, and he pulled her closer. “I do not care what people say. But I thought you might.” When she shook her head, he looked pleased. “Then, you may blame it on me. Although I doubt she will believe it.” 

 

She sighed dramatically and tried to hide the giddiness in her expression. “She won’t. You’re far too graceful and gracious. She’ll definitely know it was me.” 

 

“‘Graceful and gracious’? What other words would you use to describe an elven apostate?” That alien playfulness was back. She could see the laugh lines at the corners of his mouth now. 

 

“Oh no. I’m not falling for that. You can only stroke a man’s ego so much” - 

 

“I believe you’ve stroked far more than my ego.” 

 

She barked out a loud, ungainly laugh and slung a thigh over his hips. 

 

There were several more moments of languid laughter - she had always liked laughter and sex. She was never one for angry sex, and it was nice to see that Solas seemed to be of the same mind. 

 

The sun had started to set and the breeze grew colder, but Solas never seemed to feel the weather and as a qunari, she ran warmer than most. The blankets and comforters, with the exception of one that had been tossed unceremoniously onto the floor during their antics, were gathered around them anyway. The laughter died down eventually and so did their voices. 

  
They fell asleep like that, entangled in each other and their smiles and laughter. 

**Author's Note:**

> probably going to be writing more adaar/solas because that's my jam. love me some qunari ladies being treated like ladies.


End file.
